After months of negotiations, New York and its two neighboring states finally agreed on how to split billions in federal COVID-19 aid money destined for public transportation.
Under the agreement, New York will receive about $ 10.8 billion, New Jersey will receive about $ 2.6 billion, and Connecticut will receive about $ 474 million. The agreement was announced Tuesday by the governors of the three states.
Transit systems in the region lost more than 90% of their passenger numbers during the height of the pandemic, causing steep declines in revenue.
The negotiations threatened NJ Transit’s budget and left spending plans for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey in limbo.
The funding came from two stimulus packages approved by Congress to address the economic impact on the region’s transit systems, which are the largest in the country. The money will help cover operating costs and finance longer-term infrastructure needs.
“New York City and the Tri-State region cannot fully recover from the pandemic without our transit agencies effectively and efficiently moving millions of people in and out of New York City each day,” said Governor Kathy. Hochul.
“As a result of a series of productive conversations with my fellow governors, I am glad that we have reached an agreement that benefits everyone,” he added.
Negotiations stalled when officials in New York and New Jersey discussed the formula used by Congress for coronavirus relief, which diverged from previous transit funding formulas.
New Jersey officials had accused the MTA, the nation’s largest transit system, of demanding too large a stake. At a board meeting last month, the agency’s acting chief executive officer, Janno Lieber, called the dispute “unnecessary.”
“We cannot commit to hundreds of millions of dollars just because New Jersey is mad at us,” he said.
Last year, MTA officials painted a dire picture for the future of public transportation if federal funds weren’t available, raising the specter of widespread layoffs, service cuts, and fare increases in the coming years.
The MTA’s average weekday bus and subway riders topped 7 million in 2019, with hundreds of thousands more on its regional rail lines. The number of passengers remains between 30% and 50%. The number of New Jersey Transit riders on trains, buses, and light rail was just under a million before the pandemic, and is down between 30% and 40%.
– .
